4th May 2023 Edition

Council Survey: pier, jetties and area around them for private enterprise

The Council’s common sense is again called into question when it comes to the newest survey about our pier, jetties and the land around them.

This is public reserve land and public pier and jetties.

There are plenty of community events held throughout the year all along the Esplanade on the areas along and around these areas, which I am all for but not on the pier and jetties.

This has been brought up in the past, and common sense prevailed.

These are not for private or commercial use as the survey wants.

Commercial: selling goods and services like business hosting an event, coffee and refreshments cart, yoga classes and fishing and tackle carts.

Private: special activities where family, friends and people known to the host (the word host sounds like a private business wanting to hold an event) are invited to attend a wedding ceremony, birthday party or memorial, permanent kiosk on the pier, structure attached to the pier for a cafe /restaurant.

Partial hire for a private function to be held on the pier or jetty/ full hire for a private function hosting a dinner or wedding reception on the pier or jetty.

All these are questions in the survey as well; do they want to change local laws to allow this to happen? 

At no time should the public be stopped from accessing public reserve land, public pier and jetties. The Council spent a fortune on a huge timber set up at the Botanical Gardens that you can hire for these private functions. There are established businesses already holding weddings or wedding receptions, or private functions that will lose business.

There are cafes and restaurants all along the Esplanade that will lose business.

The fishing and tackle shops will lose business, and even yoga businesses will lose business if these are available right on the land, pier and jetties near or on the beach.

The Council tell us to support the already established local businesses as they are struggling, and then the Council threatens to take their livelihood off them by even suggesting this to happen in their survey.

The pier and jetties are not very wide and have only a small area at the end of the Jetties for people to stand or fish.

The Council has already allowed private businesses to operate one at Urangan as you walk off the Pier, one at Scarness that went from being out last remaining boat shed to a huge cement building that is an eyesore and one at Point Vernon that is in the process of refurbishment.

These used to be just boat sheds and the original leases allowed boat sheds to be built and operated as they offered a service to locals and tourists who wanted to use the beach in the hire of water activity equipment.

The only one that still does that is the one at Torquay, that is why I didn’t add that one to the three above.

Leave our public reserve land, pier and jetties for what they have been used for generations by my family and others, walking, sitting and relaxing, fishing or just enjoying the view. 

Please do the survey and tell the Mayor and Councillors “NO”.

Delma Taylor